DC#321 ~ Double Dog Dare (Non-Dominant and Auras)

What a challenge!  I feel as though I have really been working this week....I have been practicing with my non-dominant hand all week to get this done for the challenge. Laura Harms aka "The Diva" has asked us to not only use our non-dominant hand (which, in my case, is my left hand), but also to choose tangles which require auras. Even at the best of times,  my auras are rarely evenly done, so I'm not exactly sure which one challenged me more.

Here is my finished tile....I could only work on it for short periods of time because my hand would cramp up so I had to rest it. But I did find that even with the added stress of the auras, I still felt a great deal of relaxation taking my time and just concentrating on the lines I was drawing. . . watching them form from my pen . . . moving over a bit to make another line . . . and watching the shapes form . . . almost hypnotic for me! Then the coloring in of the black portions . . . oh what tiny little strokes I took to make sure that my area was covered . . . going over a line with the blackening process to try to fill in the shakiness of the drawn line . . . and some stippling in a few places. And now, the shading . . . THAT was really hard, not so much getting the graphite down but maneuvering the blending stump to get the graphite where I wanted it. Then the white highlights . . . that seemed to be even more delicate and took me a long time as well. But, in spite of all the time and self talk and hypnotic drawing that I did, I am rather pleased with the way it turned out. Several places didn't quite work the way I had hoped, but it's okay, it looks good . . . enough!

DC #321 ~ Double Dog Dare
Media: 4x4 Strathmore Toned Tile, Black Micron 01,
Creative Memories Fine Black Pen, Graphite,
and White chalk pencil by General
Tangles: Loki, Zinger (of sorts), Arukas, Garlic,
and Crescent Moon

Here are a couple of practice pieces that I was trying to get my hand working so that I could go to a regular size tile . . . not the greatest, but they were intended for practice, so it's okay *big grin*

Thank you for stopping by and as always, I always appreciate comments, be they constructive criticism or any other comments. Please stop the Diva's Place (here) and see what other artists have made of this challenge. Feel free to give it a try if you are so inclined. Hope to see You here one of these days as well, so you can join in on our fun.

Have a zen-ful day!  :)

DC #320 ~ UMT: Dansk by Margaret Bremner

I actually managed to tune in while Laura was streaming last Sunday to find out the challenge was. This week we are challenged to use a tangle my Margaret Bremner called 'Dansk'. I have been tangling on and off since summer of 2014 and have seen this tangle used, but I had actually never tried it. So I watched carefully as Laura was explaining that it worked best if the auras were the same width. Well, I DID try to do that, but my hands were hurting, so they might not be equal. But no matter, it was relaxing to make the shapes whether they were perfect or not (aside:  most of my stuff is NOT perfect, although that's what I strive for after I have actually learned the exercise). I finished up the linework just as Laura finished streaming.

It was very comfortable to tangle along with the other folks that were online, especially since I wasn't able to go to my Tangle Meetup on the 11th. It was my son's birthday and he had hurt his ankle, so we were babysitting his ankle. I fully intended to finish the shading and highlighting on Monday, the 12th, but instead I spent all day in the emergency room with my son, because we thought that his cellulitis had maybe come back . . . that's how bad his ankle was hurting. I hadn't brought any of my tangling stuff with me except a few tiles and a pen.  Not even a pencil was in my bag! You can bet THAT won't happen again!

So here is my first challenge tile and actually the first time I had actually used Dansk:

DC #320 ~ UMT: DANSK
Media: 4x4 Grey Toned tile, Black Micron 01, White Gelly
 Roll, White General Chalk Pencil, graphite, grey fineliner
Tangles Used: Dansk, Diva Dance, Fescu, Chainey by
Gaylene Miller and Black Pearls.

So I finally finished this up on the 13th in the morning, but I had actually done linework on another one while I was sitting all day at emergency. I actually felt more relaxed doing this one because I had an idea of what I was doing with Dansk. I finished it up on the 13th as well with the shading and highlighting. I actually think I like this one much better. What do you think?

DC #320 ~ UMT: Dansk by Margaret Bremner
Media: Toned Tan hand cut 3.5 x 3.5 tile, Black Micron 01,
White Gelly Roll, graphite, white General chalk pencil.
Tangles: Dansk, Joki, Tipple, Flux, Moowa, Crescent
Moon (around the circle that looks like a flower)

So there you go for this week, I'm glad I finally had some time to post them to my blog [and before Sunday night too :)))]  I think I will be using this tangle more and incorporating it into some of my work. I need to go check out everyone else's offerings, so thank you for stopping by and checking this out.

As always, comments both bad and good, are welcome as I always appreciate constructive criticism. If you want to check out the other artists participating in this week's challenge, you can find it here.

Thanks again for visiting and have a zen-ful day!

DC #318 ~ Diptych & DC #317 ~ Photo Tangle

I can hardly believe that it's June already - where is this year going anyway? I haven't accomplished nearly what I set out to do, but luckily for me, I don't have deadlines (thankfully) because I am retired. Pretty much things get done as they get done. We have had a windfall and were able to help our daughter get a new car when hers broke down. With 2 little girls, she HAS to have reliable transportation, especially since she is a single mom. The girls are 9 and 7 and were thrilled to have a car that nobody had owned before them. It really made our day to be able to help them out!

They are out of school now for the summer and want to come over a few times so I can teach them to draw "like Grandma Leslie" does. They are both quite artistic and imaginative, as are most of our granddaughters. As a matter of fact, our eldest granddaughter just graduated from a liberal arts high school and is going to Singapore to study design over there. She received a prestigious scholarship, and so will be heading off there soon. I am terribly proud of her and know that when she was little, we used to do "art" together every day.

So with artistic thoughts in my mind over the last little while, I have been playing around a lot with different ideas, but mostly trying to clean out my art supplies because I have some VERY old ones around from my college days. I kept a few sketchbooks and have one abstract painting I found. As soon as I clean it up, I'll likely post it here on the blog.

But this latest challenge from the Diva has really caught my fancy, so I made a few this week, but am only posting one right now, since the others are in various states of completion. When I read about the challenge

      "So, this week's challenge is to create a Diptych. A diptych is two panels joined with a hinge
                        - and the panels are mirrored - and i use the term 'mirrored' loosely" 

I too opted for a zendala, only because I like the way it is folded and decided to make a 'hobbit door'. I can only imagine that Bilbo and Frodo and all the other hobbits might approve of this and use in their little hobbit holes. So here is my take on this weeks challenge "The Hobbit Door"

DC #318 ~ Diptych "The Hobbit Door"
Media: Hand cut Zendala Tile, Black Micron 01 pen,
Grey marker, graphite pencil and Prismacolor pencil
Tangles: Moowa, Mooka, Trefoil, Huggins (?)

I didn't get a chance to take a picture of my last challenge piece, so here is my take on DC #317 ~ Photo Tangles. I was going through some of my old magazines while trying to shovel the garage out and came across some of my artist doll magazines. At one time, I tried my hand at making and making over dolls into art dolls, So I found a lot of inspiration in those magazines. The picture I chose to use was in an ad for another magazine and the image and position of it really inspired me. Here is my challenge piece for DC #317

DC #317 ~ "Balancing Act"
Media: Yellow Photo Mat, Micron Pen 01 Black, Graphite, Prismacolor
Tangles: Molygon, Flux, Mooka, Diva Dance, Crescent Moon

I hope you have enjoyed my offering this week and thank you for stopping by! If you would like to see what other artists have shown, just head over to the Diva's place (here) and take a look at what everyone is showing for these challenges.

Again, Thank you for stopping by and all comments, good and bad, are welcome!

DC #315 ~ Molygon & DC #314 ~ UMT: Scallamps

Since my post is so very late this week, it will be quite short. The challenge this week was to explore the tangle "MOLYGON" which is a tangle which was created by Rick and Maria, who created the Zentangle method for us. I have been playing with this all week and have scraps of paper all over the house with bits of Molygon on them, but really couldn't find one that really pleased me. So here is the one that I persevered until the end with and I think I like it a bit. Anyway, here it is for you to see.  As always, comments are welcome and creative criticism is always appreciated.

MOLYGON
Black Micron, Sepia Micron, Grey Fineliner, Graphite

Since I didn't get my challenge piece posted for last week, I would like to include it here as well. This is the piece I did for the UMT Challenge ~ Scallamps by Sarah Uram. I quite enjoyed this one and you can probably notice that this one does flow a lot better than my Molygon challenge.

SCALLAMPS
Black Micron and Graphite
Tangles: Scallamps, Pokeroot, Flux, Joki, Tipple, & Pinbawl

I really enjoy the Diva's challenges, and always do something whether or not I get it posted. I have decided that I need to start getting on the stick and getting my pieces posted when they get done regardless of whether they are current or not. During one of the Twitch live sessions, I mentioned to Laura that I am generally late, and she said that is fine, just add it to the week where it belongs. So I may post one from time to time that belongs in an earlier challenge. For those of you just stopping by, you can see the Diva's weekly challenge and the pieces that are submitted at the Diva's blog (here).

Thank you for stopping by and comments are always welcome!

DC #313 ~ Amanda (Earth) Day!

On the very first Earth Day in 1970, I was a senior in High School (now you know my age...lol) and there was a big rally up at the college in my town. I went and listened and thought about what they were trying to do. It all made sense to me and I have since that time, tried to do things that were earth friendly. There have been times that I haven't always been as conscientious as I should have been, but I always try to remember that this earth that we live on won't last forever, especially if we don't take care of it.

Along those lines, I have been going through some things that need to leave this house and came upon a few books that were falling apart. I had always wanted to try "found poetry" and this particular book has a replacement copy in the house so I used a page from it to tangle on. It is a page from "Renegades of Pern" by Anne McCaffery and one of my favorite books (the whole family loves fantasy and sci-fi). So I hope you like it, I think it turned out well. The small piece was a piece of scrap paper that I just didn't want to throw away because of course it was big enough to use for something, I just didn't know what. I tried to do them both in earthy tones with colors that might be found in nature. So without further delay, here they are!

Amanda (Earth) Day #1
Click to see larger

Amanda (Earth) Day #2
Click to see larger

Thank you for stopping by and as always, comments and critiques are always appreciated. If you want to see how other artists approached this challenge, check out the Diva's page (here) and see them all. And remember, you too can come and play with us and show us your interpretation of the challenges each week.

DC # 301 ~ DuoTangle: Paradox v.Diva Dance

First off, thank you very much for visiting my blog last week and a big thanks to those that left comments. I am not the best person in the world for posting comments, but do try to get around to all of the blogs. I am so inspired by all the artists at the Diva's blog, so I go through all of the blogs a lot. Thank you all for sharing!

I'm SO glad that Artoo had a successful Moebius Syndrome Awareness day and that his school and community are so mindful of the disorder that he has and that he is able to show the world that he is, in fact, perfect just the way he is. What an amazing family that the Diva has!

In the Zentangle Newsletter this week, they had a new video entitled "Kitchen Table Tangles" and Rick and Maria were demonstrating a duo tangle of Paradox and Diva Dance and showing how to intertwine them. The Diva decided that it would be a good challenge for this week and so we were challenged to do just that ... a DuoTangle of Paradox and Diva Dance. I loved that way that Rick had tangled his piece, but intertwining the two tangles just didn't seem to happen for me, but that's okay. I have never been fond of my Diva Dance, but I loved how this tile turned out . . . AND I think that the shading almost shows up nearly as dark as it is in person. Hope you like this and as always, comments and critiques are always welcome.

DC#301 ~ Duotangle: Paradox v. Diva Dance
Tools: Micron 01 Black pen, Graphite pencil for shading

I was going back through my blog and realized that I had not posted some of my challenges, so please indulge me as I post these. This first one is using the new tangle, "DraWings" and I must say that I really love drawing this one. It just seems to flow for me.

This next one is Icanthis. I wasn't sure that I was going to like this one, but I found it fun to work with as well. Here's what I did with it on a recent tile.

Please take some time and check out what the other fabulous artists have been doing with the Diva's challenge here and perhaps you may get inspired to join us in this fun. Thanks for stopping by!

UMT ~ Orbs-La-Dee (DC# 298) and IAST# 179

Happy New Year, my friends!  I can't believe that I didn't post at all since the first part of December, but it was a real busy time trying to keep everyone well here. I suspect that everyone else was busy as well. At any rate, it's good to be back and this year, I am going to TRY to keep up with at least the Diva's Challenge. I am thinking of trying a couple of others as well, since I have decided that this year, I am taking time for myself more than I normally do. I definitely need to de-stress and my artwork tends to do that for me.

So this week, since it is the first week (technically the second, but the first one with a challenge), it's time for a UMT (Use My Tangle) and Laura has chosen Orbs-La-Dee. I have only tried it a couple of times and that wasn't in a composition, just trying the tangle on for size. Well, I found that it's all kinds of fun and I think that this will become a new favorite of mine.  Anyway, without further adieu, here is my Diva Challenge tile. I was just playing with Ogee grids and thought that this worked well for me.

UMT ~ Orbs-La-Dee
Tangles used: Orbs-La-Dee, Joki. Moowa, Tipple
Tools: Sakura Micron 01 and 08 (for coloring)
Graphite pencil for shading (darker that it shows here)

 I also decided that I was going to try other challenges this year from time to time and will post them here as well. This week, I decided to try Adele Bruno's IAST #179. Adele used a double spiral string and had us use the tangles Betweed, Dust Bunny, and Curl. I had used Betweed before, but the other two I had never used. Although I like all of the tangles separate, I'm not at all sure that I like the way this turned out. I can't seem to find the string, although I do know it's there. But I did finish it, even though I wanted to toss it. I may revisit it at some time, but for now, here it is for what it is!

IAST # 179
Tangles used: Betweed, Dust Bunny, and Curl
Tools used: Sakura Micron 01, graphite pencil and Derwent colored pencil

Again, I'm not real sure I like this one, but here it is anyway and I at least made the effort to try the new-to-me challenges. The color that I used isn't showing up as brightly as it is in rl, but that's the best I could do with my camera. Hopefully, I will get ink soon since my scanner is also my printer and it won't even scan when the printer is out of ink :(.  Anyway, I enjoyed getting back into tangling after the holidays and am going to try to be here more often this year.

Thanks for dropping by and as always, comments are appreciated. There are many people that do these challenges, so click HERE for the Diva's Challenge and HERE for Adele's It's A String Thing Challenge. Take a look at all the wonderful submissions and come play with us if you want to try it yourself.

Have a Zen-ful day!

DC #290 ~ Duotangle ... 'Nzeppel / Flux

Just a short post this week ... my computer chair gave up the ghost and decided to break on me and toss me to the floor when I was leaning over to pet one of my kitties. So I am kind of in a world of hurt atm. Laura Harms, the Diva, challenged us to a duotangle of 'Nzeppel and Flux. But I had never really tried 'Nzeppel before and Flux is one of my all time favorites, so I decided that I had best do what I could. After trying 'Nzeppel several different ways in my sketch book, I was finally ready to work on a tile or two.

Media: 3.5" plant-dyed tile
Sakura Micron 01 Black
Graphite pencil for shading
Grey fineliner for additional shading

For this first tile, I used one of my experimental backgrounds. I had read about "boiled books" right here on the Diva's website and decided to give it a try. There weren't actually many leaves left on the vine out back when I tried this, so the colors weren't the greatest and I wasn't exactly sure how to proceed. Turns out I need a whole lot more steps to get it looking fabulous, but I kind of liked the way this one turned out. I tried to include a couple of Flux (Maria-style) as well, but I don't do as well with those.

Media:  3.5" self-cut tan tile (Used Creative Memories
Scrapbooking page and cut it up)
Sakura Micron Sepia pen 01
Sakura Micron Black pen 01
Prismacolor Premier colored pencils

This is my second tile and I like it much better. This utilized my favorite form of Flux. I like the combination of colors here too.  My favorite color combination is sepia, black, and white on a tan tile. For this one, I actually used a very light pinky beige for the 'Nzeppel. It doesn't show up well here, but it's just a hint of color on the actual piece.















Thank you for stopping by this week, and as always, comments and critiques are welcome. I try to get around to all the blogs, but I may be a bit late this week, due to not being able to sit at the computer for very long right now. For those who haven't checked out the other submissions, you should go see what has been posted for the Diva's challenge HERE.

Have a zen-ful day!

DC # 289 ~ Leafy Goodness! (and a few late goodies to share too)

Apparently I'm back again...my computer decided to play nicely for awhile (actually the computer plays perfectly - it's the wireless connection that doesn't want to play nicely!), so I can get my challenge tiles posted. I'll try not to bore or overwhelm you with a long post, since I have really been gone now for a few weeks. But, before I get started, I just HAVE to share this picture of my 3 adorable kitties with you. First though, a little background ... on my old computer hutch that I haven't used in a very long time, there are cubbies that I normally put the grocery bags in and in front of that my craft sewing machine on one side and my printer on the other. There is room for 2 kitties to sleep perfectly on the bags and the normally do. Salem, the youngest, is usually the only one up there anymore and he sleeps behind the sewing machine. Nicky, the middle fur baby, originally had that spot, but apparently Salem won the toss. Mistoffellees, our old man, usually sleeps next to me in one of the dining room chairs. Anyway, this particular day, everyone's routine got upset and Salem was upstairs longer than normal...when he came down, and was about to go to his hidey hole, he found it taken. Well, normally he will just go to the other side, but Nicky was there because Mistoffellees was in Salem's spot. So Salem started telling me about it and when I turned around from my computer, I just about died laughing at the scene going on, so I grabbed the camera. Anyway, these are my 3 wonderful furbabies!

An indignent Salem...with Nicky and Mistoffellees totally oblivious to
the outrage of our youngest kitty...lol

I loved our challenge to tangle autumn leaves (at least they are autumn leaves in this part of the world right now - my inlaws would have spring leaves). I had a maple leaf cutout and a oak leaf that I used for my strings and tried to use the techniques from 2014 "Tints on Tan" kit that I had bought at that time. I liked the way it looked, but there was far too much 'white space' for me, so I was going to just add a little grey tipple around the leaves, but got carried away. I didn't really like the way it was looking, so I used graphite to color between the tipple and hated that even more. Then when my husband was looking at it, the angle that he was holding it at made it look to me like the leaves were floating on a puddle or something like that, so that's where I went with it. I added blue which greyed the background so that it wasn't so obtrusive and the leaves popped. Guess if you just keep at it, eventually it will satisfy. Not to say that it didn't...I loved drawing this one and really got lost in the tangles, but I really wanted to make this ZIA out of it. Anyway, this is my submission ...

Media:  3.5" square tan tile
Brown Micron 01
Black Micron .005
Sepia Micron .005
Prismacolor colored pencils

Media:  3.5" square black tile
White gelly roll pen

Diva Challenge #288 challenged us to use the tangle Gourdgeous on our tile in honor of Canada's Thanksgiving. Gourdgeous is one of my favorite tangle patterns, so I did two. The first one is just white on a black background, but I had fun doing it.

Media: 4" square watercolor paper
Dye ink background
Micron Sepia Pen 01
White Prismacolor

The second one is done on a watercolor washed background, which really wasn't what I had intended. I had decided to try some watercolor backgrounds and this one just really didn't work, but that's likely because I couldn't find my watercolors and used some dye inkpads for my pigment and the tile wasn't nearly wet enough. But I used it anyway, so it is what it is!











And here is the last one (I promise).  I loved Daniel's stepout  for Dreamcatcher, especially since when I was in high school and college I used to make them for my friends out of wool roving and bits of turquoise, so I really did love the wonderful stepout he did for it. My version is done on a tan tile with what I thought was terracotta pencil shading, but I have a light out in the kitchen where I do my tangling, so it was actually a mulberry color. When I discovered that is was the wrong color, it actually worked out well as I wanted the outside ring to be a bit darker, so I used the terracotta for that and it worked out well. But that's okay, pink is my favorite color anyway! So here is my last submission for this week and I will not be nearly so long next time. That's a promise *grin*

Media: 3.5" tan tile
Micron Black 01
Micron Sepia 01
Prismacolor colored pencils ~ Mulberry/Terracotta

As always, comments, critiques, messages, or just a "Hi, how are you" are appreciated. And please do the same for everyone that has joined in the Diva Challenge this week. If you want to play with the challenges as well, you can find them at the Diva's blog (click here) and join us sometime. It's a wonderful group of people and very informative. I've learned a lot participating in this. Have a great week!

Relax, Bro! DC # 285

It's been awhile again since I posted, but at least I'm here now! This challenge really spoke to me because I find I do things much differently when they are done just for me. I tend to fill a lot more space and just let things flow wherever they want. In fact, the one I did for this challenge just happened one day when I decided to do absolutely nothing except what I wanted with the day. I actually started this one in mid-afternoon and finished up well after midnight. But then, I do most of my work well after midnight because that's when there's nobody awake to make demands on my time...except for one or two of the cats and they tend to mostly leave me alone. Anyway, I couldn't even begin to tell you about this one except I decided to use my sepia pen to do most of my drawing (could also be because my black one is about to give up the ghost). I did start with Ellish, because I love it and also because my name starts with "L", so it appeals to me. Then my pen just kind of did it's thing with Flux and Tipple and a few others that I'm not at all sure what they are. Anyway, this was a most relaxing piece for me and I know that I need to do more of this kind of exercise to really find the "zen" in my life again.

Thank you for stopping by this week and as always, I always love remarks and comments (as everyone does). I try to get around to the blogs of everyone and leave feedback, but my hands don't always cooperate these days. Hopefully, I'll be back in the swing of things soon so I can play again with these challenges. If you would like to join in the fun as well, please stop by the Diva's blog and check out all the wonderful challenge pieces. You can find it here (click here) and you may decide you want to join us each week. Until next time .... Have a 'zen' ful day!

Circular World ~Diva #277

So.....I haven't been here for a couple of weeks due to my computer dying, but my darling son and husband bought me a new laptop that exceeds all my wildest dreams. It's a top gaming computer and breezes through the internet so fast that sometimes I can barely catch my breath...lol. But now I can hopefully get a few things posted.

It's been a very HOT couple of weeks here in Utah. I guess that Mother Nature needs to remind us that we DO live on a desert and that's how it's supposed to be in the summer. But in the last couple of weeks, we have only had a handful of days below 100 degrees F here. So I have spend my time indoors and have been tangling and playing with new techniques...it's been fun, but as I look at my meager output, I wonder why I don't have more to post. Could be that I am a blasted perfectionist. I had 3 or 4 great ideas for the Peace challenge, but seems I couldn't even get one finished. I'll just keep them in my "to be finished sometime" box.

Tangles used: Onamato (variation), Copada (I think),
Hibred, Arukas, Tipple, and a couple I don't know if they
are actually tangles.

But this week, the Diva (Laura Harms) is back home and has challenged us to "Go Round in Circles", with a circular inspired string or circle tangles. I really enjoyed this challenge, because I LOVE circles and I love circular tangles. Just something soothing in drawing orbs, maybe because they are infinite...no beginning and no end, just smooth infinity. Anyway, here is mine for this week. I wasn't able to do any editing on this so that the shading actually shows, but it really does and is actually beautifully shaded. My hubby loves it (which is  unusual) and suggested that it cried out for brilliant colour, and not pastel, wimpy colours. What do you think?

Tangles used:  Leaflet, Cat-Kin, St John's Cross, and Zen Bud

I also did an It's a String Thing challenge by Adele Bruno, but didn't finish it in time to submit it, I plan on using this one for a card front. I like this one too, but again, the shading doesn't show up well. I've got to find a way to load my Photoshop program onto this computer ... it doesn't have a drive for me to load from, so I guess I need to get a high capacity USB memory stick to load it.

Tangles used: Static, Tipple, and Crescent Moon

My birthday was earlier this month and I bought myself something that I have been debating on getting for a long time ... the book "One Zentangle A Day" by Beckah Krahula. I have started working in it, but I am not likely to do it daily like is outlined. I will do it in order, it's just that I like to take longer. At our last tangle get-together here in Salt Lake with the Intermountain Tanglers, we were talking about how our attention gets diverted, something that my family and I call "Bright and Shiny Syndrome". You know, you're in the middle of finishing or doing something, and something else catches you eye, so you stop what you are doing and do something else. Well, that pretty much sums up my life, so it kind of takes me forever to get things done, and that related to everything, even my tangling! But I did finish the first day and actually quite liked the result, so here is is without further ado...

So there you have it, my small submission for this weeks challenge and a few more goodies.

Thanks for stopping by and if you have the chance to see what all of the other artists have submitted, head over the the Diva's blog  and check them out. As always, I appreciate comments and helpful critique on my work. Thank you again for stopping by!

Have a zen-ful day!

Diva Challenge 273 ~ Tangle Remix and Playing Catch-up

Would you believe it? It's only Thursday and I am actually posting today  instead of Sunday night! It's been a pretty good week for me and I have a huge stack of tiles that need help badly. Our challenge this week was to take an old tile that we had in our stash and find one that could be helped by a remix or fresh coat of ink. I picked 2 and sadly, only 1 of them actually looks better. So I think I will show you that one first *giggle* I hate to show my worst work first....

So here it is initially....minimal shading and pretty much just Plain Jane. I suspect this was one for a stripes challenge and was done either in late 2014 or early 2015. When I looked at it, I felt it could be helped by a bit of a facelift (I could use one too, but that isn't quite so easy as it is to change artwork). So here is the modification that I did on it - mostly shading and just a few additions.

I really like this one much better, even if it doesn't show the shading as well as it looks in person. Sometimes I think that I prefer taking pictures to scanning, but at least they are getting finished by using the scanner.










This second one was done in July 2015 for a Simplicity challenge for the Diva. I really thought that I could help it out by adding to it, since it looked rather empty to me. I love simplicity, but sometimes even the simplest ones could use a bit more. So here is the original tile from 2015...

Just a bit too bland for me and I don't think I liked it even then. The shading on it is really that poorly done, so I thought I would dress it up and shade it a bit more. But I think I just made a mess of it. I may try to redo it again one day, but you can make up your mind.





Here's the remix, such as it is....

It really didn't turn out anything like I pictured. Oh well, sometimes I like them and sometimes I don't.















I missed the Black and White and Red all over challenge and I did a few of them, but this was the first one that I did and I did it in my sketchbook. I really wish I had done it on a tile as I really like it. But I am going to try it again on the front of a card and see if I can get it the way I like. There are several people that I really need to write to, and it's so much easier to send a card than to find my stationary again.

Thank you very much for stopping by. I always appreciate seeing some traffic here. As usual, I appreciate ALL comments, good or bad, and any creative criticism is appreciated. I have learned so much from this group and am so glad that I have joined in these challenges.

Now I can go back and see everything that everyone else has submitted, since there are so many talented artists here. If you would like to see what everyone else has done, please head over to the Diva's blog (HERE) and check it out. There's always time for you to start joining us. Come try it....it's fun!

Diva Challenge # 268 ~ "Bit-o-black"

Just a short entry tonight because we've all been a bit under the weather here. I loved this challenge, but since I tend to use quite a bit of black anyway, I was hard pressed to know what to do. So I decided to try to play a bit with a Mooka monotangle and darken the spaces. Also, I tried to draw it a bit closer to the way the stepouts indicate, even though I tend to normally do mine a LOT different.  Anyway, here's my entry for this weeks challenge....hope you  like it :)

I did this in black ink on a Strathmore toned tan 4" tile and used graphite to shade with with accents and a few highlights with a white chalk pencil. Not quite what I had in mind, but still nicely dramatic, which fit with what I had wanted.

Thank you for stopping by and, as always, CC are always appreciated. If you want to see what the other artists submitted for this challenge, please check out the Diva's blog (click here) and see what everyone has done for the challenge.

Have a zen-ful day!

Challenge # 267 ~ Drupe / Pokeroot

I'm behind again and here it is Saturday (but hey, at least it isn't quite Sunday yet). I got my challenge tile done last week, but for some reason, I just was exhausted and didn't get my blog written. I think it must be something going around, because both of my sisters have called this week and we are ALL exhausted with no discernable reason, except perhaps allergies. My younger sister and I are both allergic to cats and she has 2 and I have 3. Can't seem to give up the fur babies and don't want to even try! But my older sister and I figure that it's just because we are getting old....her birthday was last week and she was 70 and I will be 64 in July and we both have physical problems, so I  guess we can blame it on that *giggle*   Ah well, I guess I will just take responsibility and say it was just tired and just flat didn't get it done.

But now that's out of the way, this weeks challenge was to make a duo-tangle using  Drupe and Pokeroot. I have seen these both many times, but in actuality I have never tried either one of them that I recall. I think that somewhere along the line, I probably tried to draw them without knowing what they were, but I just really don't recall using them.  After practicing them both for a bit...I decided that I could actually use them, but trying to get them to play nice was a bit difficult. I have several half done tiles and attempts, but I finally got one done. It took me all week though, I'm afraid because the weather this last week has been making a mess of my arthritic hands and I just couldn't hold the pen well. But here is my attempt:

After I  finished the penwork, I decided I would like it better with color and after I made my Pokeroot into some weird color (Prismacolor PC937~Tuscan Red) of cherries, my son suggested that I put yellow with it (I usually listen to him as he has a great eye for color...he gets that ability from his dad). I didn't have a yellow that I liked, so I used one of my orange colored pencils (Prismacolor PC1003~Spanish Orange) and liked the way it turned out. So I guess it was worth all the time it took for me to finish it *smile*

As I mentioned above, I actually DID do challenge #266 ~ UMT Crux. I rather like the way it turned out too and I actually did scan the penwork just in case I didn't like the colors I had chosen. So I have my penwork for this one before shading and color. I need to get into the habit of taking pictures before I do any shading or coloring to see where my linework can use improvement. So here is the basic linework for Challenge 266 ~ Crux

Nothing fancy here, just pretty much just Crux and some Flux with Springkle and a bit of Tipple.

Here's the same picture now after I colored it and did a bit of shading. Hope you like it!

I signed this one different than the normal signature I use, but I didn't really like it, so I guess I will keep trying different ones out until I am thrilled with one.  Anyway, that is my meager offerings for this week.

If you haven't seen all of the artists that have submitted their tiles for the Diva's challenge, please head on over to her site and check out the submissions there for this challenge. Scroll through and take a look of some of the fabulous artists that show their work each week and if you would like to join us, please do. It's a great learning opportunity each week. You can find the Diva's site here (click here), so come and play along and find your Zen!

Any and all comments are appreciated, good or bad, and helpful criticism is always appreciated. Thank you for stopping by!

Diva Challenge #265 ~ Stripes

Here we are at the end of the challenge week and although I was very busy this week, I only have one tile to share with you. We had family get togethers this week and it was great to see some of the family that I haven't seen in awhile. My cousin and his wife had spent the last 3 or 4 years over in Russia as missionaries and had a lot of wonderful stories to tell as well as some of the strife the Russian people had suffered over the years. It was fascinating to hear the stories they told, and sad to hear of the trouble and fear that went along with living in a country that doesn't want you there. Evidently where they were was very close to Ukraine and they were very fearful on several occasions and taken by the KGB on several occasions for questioning. But now they are safe and sound and we are glad they are home.

I have worked on a couple of Zentangles and did finish my stripes tile for submission. I was going through some of my older work and found a few that I am going to try and finish up in the next few weeks and so will get them  posted when I get them done. So here for your perusal is my tile for this week:

I chose to go minimal on this because of the tangles I wanted to use. I don't actually remember the names of them, but I like the way they look together on here. As always, comments good or bad are always welcome.

If you would like to see what the other artists have shared this week, head on over to the Diva's blog (click here) and see what everyone has shared. There are some beautiful pieces there this week, as always.

Thank you very much for stopping by and have a zen-tastic day!

Diva Challenge #264 ~ String Theory: String into Spring

Our challenge this week was to use a spring-like string and create something using that string. I actually had a picture of the string I was going to use and had the linework all done, but when I went and shaded it, it became a disaster, so I may actually try that one again (I do have a picture of the linework before shading, so I can just do it again!) But the one that I actually finished (yes, I started several and none of them spoke to me, so I have a pile of half-finished tiles hanging around - maybe for another day) turned out better than I thought it would. The only problem is that I did finally get my scanner working (YAY!) but it tends to drain all the color out. And since it's dark out now, I didn't want to be taking pictures to upload, so please forgive me for the washed out color. It's far brighter than it looks.

I do actually have a 3 looped spring string under this one, but it kind of got lost. I started drawing the Abundie and in actuality, wasn't going to have it be Abundie, but the pen insisted and then just took over from there. After I finished the linework and was trying to decide how I wanted to finish it, it screamed for color. So since I haven't used my Inktense pencils in quite awhile, I thought I would give them a try, I am actually quite pleased with this....hubby thinks it looks like a Martian garden, but I just think it's a colorful ZIA. Hope you like it!

I missed last week's challenge completely, but it looked like fun, so I had to give it a try. I have had quite a problem with my hands this past few weeks, I was doing so miserably that I could barely hold my pen and I missed our local Tangling Get-together this month. I actually did try about a dozen grids for the Globular Grid challenge, but they drove me crazy, so I didn't get anything posted last week at all.

This is the Global Grid that I finally ended up finishing and again, I am still playing with the scanner to get the colors right here too.  This one is done on kind of a light pink paper, so the scanner kept trying to pick it up white and washing everything out. But I liked this one too!

That's it for this week and I know it is really last minute, but when my hands don't want to work, I can't get 'er done as quickly as I wanted to. These will be used on some cards going to family that I need to get in touch with. I love being able to use them like that.

If you haven't already seen the rest of the artists doing the Diva's challenge, you can go  HERE  and see what everyone else has done. There is a new challenge most every Monday, so if you want to go ahead and join in the fun, keep you eye on her blog. 

Thank you for checking this out and to all the other artists this week...I have been looking at all of your blogs, but wasn't able to make comments this week. Just know that I am always impressed with ALL of the work here and inspired by each and every one of you. Thanks again and have a wonderful zen-day!

Diva Challenge #262 ~ UMT Fassett by Lynn Mead

It's been an interesting week here for me and my family. The weather has been beautiful the majority of the week, with soft spring rains and warmer temperatures.  Of course, that meant that the pollen is on overdrive and consequently, I have spent a good deal of the week with sinus issues due to allergies. I don't really want to go out (although I would love to go out and about) because my eyes are so swollen with the allergies and I can't wear makeup and have it last more than a half hour (Yes, I tend to be vain about going out not looking my best). But worse than that, when I try to  blow my nose and unstuff my sinuses, it feels like I am going to pop an eye out.  That has just been a new thing with my allergies and it's the strangest feeling ever. So, I have been doing lots of experimentation and relaxation with my tangling.

I know that I have mentioned my beautiful kitties before and here is a picture of the oldest and youngest keeping me company while I am tangling and/or on the computer. (Yes I have a pillow on the table for them to sit by me.) The black and white handsome boy is Mistoffellees, who just turned 16 a month ago. He's the main reason that there is a pillow on the table. He has problems sometimes getting comfortable when he is trying to sleep. The black baby is Salem Saberhagen and he's a beautiful Bombay. I think he's about 8 or 9, but I'm not sure. Our other one, Nicholas, usually isn't on the table with them because he and Mistoffellees are still discussing who is the alpha male, but they don't know that it's actually Salem....lol. Anyway, these are my companions who keep me company.

This week's challenge by the Diva was a UMT (Use My Tangle) and we were challenged to use Lynn Mead's tangle FASSETT.  This was one of the first tangles that I learned because it was actually similar to some of the doodles I have been doing all my life. Not quite, but almost. Anyway, I find it relaxing to do tangles like this one because my pen essentially takes over with the rhythm of the lines. I used a Toned Gray Tile by Strathmore for this first one and loved how it turned out. I was not only trying out the gray tile, but also used an actual string, something that I rarely do. They tend to confuse me, but I actually liked using it on this because it gave me some direction when I started my tile. Hope you enjoy!

For my second one, I used a Toned Tan Strathmore Artist Tile. I'm not sure which one I like the best, so I'll just continue playing with them. On this one, I did some of the shading with a light gray marker and it helped me to achieve the look I was going for. I was proud of both of them, because hubby actually liked them this week. He normally says he likes them, but this week, he practically gushed, telling me that he really liked them both and told me how well I was doing with composition on these. Maybe there IS something to using a string? Well could be ... at any rate, here is my second one.  Hope you enjoy!

Well, that's it for this week and I have got to say that I thoroughly enjoyed myself on this challenge . If you get a chance, head on over to the Diva's Place (click here) and check out what everyone has submitted. It's fun to play with our tangles, so if you are a tangler, come join in the fun!

Thanks for stopping by and please leave a comment if you are inclined. It's good to know that people are out there. Have a zen-ful day!

Duo Tangle ~ Boo-Kee/Artoo

This week Laura Harms, the Diva, has challenged us to make a duo-tangle using the tangles Boo-Kee and Artoo, which she designed and named for her two boys. This week has been a difficult one at their house, what with one having a tonsilectomy (sp?) and the other visiting the ER. It's so difficult to have young ones that are sick and I know that she has had her hands full.

I had fully intended to have my offering done earlier in the week, but as quite often happens, my hands weren't working the best. So I mostly just browsed through the rest of the submissions and was amazed at all the beautiful ideas. The Diva's piece for the week is such a beautiful zendala and uses both tangles to their best advantage. I love both of these tangles and they are fun to do, but somehow I just wasn't managing to get them to play nicely together. So in the end, I did two similar tiles, but I do like one better than the other.  Here they are for your perusal.

This actually was the second tile that I completed, but since I like it better, I am posting it first. I had hoped to get the picture taken while there was still beautiful sunlight outside to show it off to it's best advantage, but it was dinner time so I had to wait until after dinner to take the picture. The blue-grey on the tile apparently is a shadow from my hand and shouldn't be there, but it is what it is. So anyway, here is the one that I actually like.

This is actually the first tile that I worked on and mostly didn't finish because I didn't know where to go with it. I loved the way the Boo-Kee started out, but they kind of overpowered the Artoo tangles and it just wasn't doing what I wanted. So I kind of took the same idea and did the second one (above). I may try again on these because I really like these two tangles together. Again, you can see the blue-gray shadow on the tile. I'll work on that next week and hopefully get the pictures taken earlier in the day and/or week.

I'm not sure if the background on this is showing up as well as I had hoped, but this was an experiment in a background treatment that was meant to look like diffused lighting in the background. It is called "bokeh" and is actually a photographic technique that has been adapted to use with rubber stamping. At least that is where I found all the instructions for it. I got some more white ink that should work better and I think that I will play with this one a bit more. Basically, all you do is blend the colors you want for your background to be very subtle and then take your white ink and use circle stencils and randomly place them over the background ink to indicate blurred lights in the background. I'll do so more and show the steps at a later date.


So that's my offerings for this week.  Thank you to all who have stopped by last week and left comments. It is always appreciated and as always, I always love comments and constructive criticism as well. If you haven't stopped by the Diva's blog yet (CLICK HERE), the hop on over there and take a look at all the wonderful artistic submissions for this (and other) challenges. I want you to know that I am not always able to leave comments on some of the submissions, for one reason or another, but I DO look at them all and appreciate them all.  See you all next week, and have a great ZEN-ful day!

Diva Challenge #244 ~ Tripoli Triptastic!

Well, seems like Sunday is likely to be my new day to post. Seems like no matter how hard I try, it's usually Sunday that I make it here *giggle*. Oh well, at least I am getting here again. *grin*

First off, thank you for your kind comments on last week's attempts. It was really quite fun and I am going to have to get more motivated again to do many more. I need to apologize though, for my lack of comments made. I have looked at all of the submissions every week, and to tell the truth, I mostly don't comment because my hands hurt a great deal of the time. But I look and love each and every one of the submissions that are made. So I will try to get around earlier next week and hopefully will be able to comment more.

I need to really get going on the few Christmas cards I plan on making. Most of the handmade ones will be going to New Zealand to the Kiwi family. One of these days, I really do want to try to make it down to see where hubby grew up. I have been working on preliminary work on a few cards already but they aren't ready for publication yet.

But ... here is my submission for this week. Tripoli is not one of my favorites, but that may be because I just haven't worked with it enough. I never know what to do with it, so I normally don't bother. But following Laura's lead, I decided to try working with pink, since that just happens to be my favorite color (or at least one of them). I'm not real pleased with this effort, but it actually does have many nice features, so here it is. Any and all comments appreciated, as usual.

If you would like to see the rest of the submissions for this challenge, head on over to the Diva's Place (CLICK HERE) to see all the artist submissions. And it's really quite fun, so join in if you are so inclined.

Diva Challenge #243 ~ Just a tiny taste!

Soooo....the Diva wants us to try to do "just a tiny taste" of a tangle and leave the majority of the tile blank. I actually thought that this would be pretty easy, since I can normally come up with my major focus for a tile early and then wonder what to fill it with. But I found that it wasn't really easy to just leave it blank. It felt unfinished for the most part, but I kept trying anyway. And...miracle of miracles, I actually am getting it posted before midnight on Sunday *giggle*. Well, here they are and not too bad for the most part, so take a quick look please and any feedback is appreciated, whether it is good OR bad. Any and all criticism is always appreciated.

Tile 1:
I love the look of white on black; however, I don't have any black tiles, but I do have a lot of darker colors of cardstock that I used to use for scrapbooking, so here I have used a dark blue with my white gelly roll and a chalk pencil to highlight a bit.

White gelly roll on dark blue cardstock with chalk pencil to highlight.

Tile 2:

I honestly don't know what I was thinking with this one...at any rate it is NOT my favorite. Nothing else to say.

Black and brown microns with colored pencil and graphite
pencil to add shading.

Tile 3:

I had sketched this design a while back in my sketchbook and decided to play with it on a tile. I just thought it was a lot of fun, but that was before hubby and son saw it. They told me that I drew a very nice psychedelic banana and that it must be homage to the 70's that I seem to have a problem remembering. I told them it WAS NOT a banana, but I suspect that I will never hear the end of it now.

Black Micron with graphite shading

Tile 4:

It's a tossup between tile 1 and this one as to which is my favorite this week. My hubby is from New Zealand and the All Blacks are doing rather well, so I was looking at some of the Maori tattoos that some of the All Blacks and others were sporting. Since his family that is still back in New Zealand are such supporters of the rugby team, I thought I would try a ZIA inspired by Maori tattoos.  Hope you like it!

Brown micron on tan scrapbook paper using graphite pencil
and colored pencil to shade and white colored pencil
to highlight. This one was kind of fun!

So there it is, and I hope you enjoy. This really was much more difficult than I imagined it would be. And yes, I did go through some of the previous entries for inspiration....it helps me. So now I will have tomorrow and tonight to go through and comment on the submissions for this week.  If you haven't taken the time to look at all the wonderful submissions, then take a look and see the submissions for this week. You can see what's up over at the Diva's (CLICK HERE) and if you like a challenge, maybe you might consider joining in the fun. Have a great day and enjoy! 

Comments are always appreciated and make me happy.  Thank you!